The present invention relates generally to the automated assignment of tasks to employees in a retail store. More specifically, the invention relates to automatically assigning employees to work at a plurality of cash registers.
In the retail arena and especially in large retail environments, assigning properly trained employees to run cash registers can be a time consuming and inefficient task. For example, a typical “big box” retailer may have a large number of cash registers (e.g., 10-30) located at the front of a store. A typical department store may have a similar number of registers scattered over multiple stories in a mall.
Retailers know that at any given time the operation of some of those registers is a higher priority than others. For example, in “big box” stores customer traffic usually leads to operating those registers on an “outside-in” basis. In other words, the registers at either end of the line of registers are maintained in operation and other registers are added as needed moving from the periphery towards the middle. In multi-level stores some retail areas (women's makeup) may require more cashiers than another area (men's shoes) at any given time. Similarly, department stores may prioritize operation of registers in the interior of the store to encourage customers to walk past additional merchandise on their way to check out.
The supervisors who have responsibility for maintaining optimal operation of the cash registers have a difficult task. They must monitor which employees are at work at any given time; know which employees are trained to operate particular registers (e.g., a single register vs. a bank of self-checkout registers); know which employees are suitable for a particular register (e.g., age limits for alcohol registers); know which registers are mechanically operational; know when employees start their shift and are due breaks; and work around daily scheduling upsets such as late employees, broken equipment or a random large influx of customers.
Currently, some retailers utilize large handwritten or computerized spreadsheets to assign employees to various cash registers or other tasks. A typical scenario, which can be repeated multiple times during the day, would be for a supervisor to receive a “master schedule” showing which employees are scheduled to work various shifts that day. This master schedule may or may not contain employee specific data such as which ones are qualified to operate a cash register. An employee then “clocks-in” to work and approaches an assignment supervisor who oversees the spreadsheet. The assignment supervisor determines if the employee is qualified to operate a cash register, looks at the spreadsheet of cash registers, then assigns the employee to a register and makes note of break times, which employees are ending shifts, which registers need to come out of service for reconciliation, etc.
Manually assigning employees to cash registers is time consuming and requires the attention of at least one employee under normal circumstances. However, numerous events can occur during the day that can significantly complicate matters. For example, if an employee clocks-in late then scheduled break times, end-of-shift times, and register assignments may need to be altered. If a cash register qualified employee calls in sick then another employee must be located to take that employee's place. It is not uncommon for cash register assignment duty to take up a large portion of one employee's time on any given day.
Accordingly, there is a need for an automated method for assigning employees to work a plurality of cash registers in a retail store. Preferably, the method would be computer based and would automatically communicate a cash register assignment to an employee when the employee clocks-in at the beginning of the shift. There is also a need for a computer system that is suitable for conducting such a method.